Page 147 of Nobody's Fool

But we aren’t done yet.

I turn to Archie. “Did you hear the screams?”

“I heard the crash,” he says, the tears cascading down his face. “I ran outside. I ran down the hill. I see my daughter. My beautiful, perfect daughter, the one who just a few minutes earlier had kissed my cheek and wished me a happy new year…”

He starts to lose it.

“Don’t,” I warn. “Not now. We have to get through this.”

“That’s it,” Archie manages to say.

“No, it’s not.”

“You know the rest.”

“I need to hear it,” I say.

He finally nods, wipes his face with his sleeves, tries to gain some composure. “I rush over to her. I’m trying to fix her, you know, like maybe there is some way to make this not have happened. I’m a fixer. It’s what I do. I control things. I can… But she’s… she’s dead. There’s no doubt about it. And Thomas is screaming we need to get help, we need to call someone. He takes out his phone…”

“I was going to call nine-one-one,” Thomas adds.

“And suddenly I hear myself say, ‘Wait.’” Archie sits up, looks at me. “I don’t remember my brain telling me to say it. There I am, standing over my dead daughter, lost, devastated—but it was like I could suddenly see everything so clearly. Like seeing the worst thing imaginable had honed my mind, gave me clarity. And do you know what I asked myself?”

“No,” I say. “What?”

“I’d lost one child. Do I want to lose two?”

It’s as though the room temperature drops twenty degrees.

“I could see three or four moves ahead,” Archie Belmond continues. “We would call the police. They would arrive en masse. Victoria would be dead. Thomas would be arrested. He had a record. Like you said. Including drunk driving for the seventh time. There would be a maximum vehicular manslaughter charge at a minimum. Drugs were in the car. Cocaine. Add that charge on too. Can’t sweep this one away. Even with money and influence, Thomas would be in prison for years. No way around that. They’d make an example out of him, I bet. And what good would that do for Victoria? She loved Thomas. She wouldn’t want that for him. And no matter what—and this is the key—Victoria would still be dead. We couldn’t bring her back. Death is final. What good would it do to destroy her brother too?”

He says it again: “I’d lost one child. Do I want to lose two?”

I nod. “So you didn’t call the police.”

“No.”

“What did you do with her body?”

“We buried her. In our woods. We burned it later. There’s no trace anymore, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’s not what I’m thinking.”

“It was the worst thing I ever did. Thomas and I, we found shovels in the garage. We buried her. I buried my own daughter. I still don’t know how. The ground was hard. But I was in a fugue state.We both were, I guess. I can’t describe it to you. I had become like a machine. Maybe because it hurt too much to feel. I just kept saying to myself, I’d lost one child, I can’t lose another. We cleaned up the scene. We put the car in the garage. You’re right. We never used it again. A few months later, we took it to a salvage yard in Vermont. Had it crushed and shredded and recycled. I was so analytical about it all. I told Thomas to go to Lacy’s. That was important. Act normal. Give us alibis. I woke up my pilots. Got my plane ready. I used the excuse that Y2K hadn’t caused any problems, so I needed to see my wife. You know all this.”

I nod again.

“I’m still seeing three or four moves ahead. Victoria was supposed to be away with her friends after the party. We could use that. Everyone knows about trails going cold, that when time passes, it makes it harder on the police. So I tried to maximize that. I sent those texts from her phone to explain why we didn’t report her missing for so long. Then I realized the police might be able to triangulate the phone. I destroyed it with a hammer.”

He stops. “Kierce,” he finally says. “You have a son.”

“Yes.”

“What wouldn’t you do to save him?”

I don’t reply.

“And it worked. You know what I mean? Thomas didn’t go to jail. He got the help he needed. He turned his life around. His sister—I know, I know—but Vic would be so proud of the man he’s become.”